Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Be a VOLUNTEEN this summer! Teens can sign up to be a Volunteer for the library's summer reading program. You'll help run the Summer Reading Desk, help patrons sign up for the program, track books, give out prizes, and more! Plus, you'll earn some community service hours.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Tuesday is a combined general election for school board, partisan
primaries for offices such as US Senate and sheriff, and non-partisan
primaries for judges. Across Durham County, about 7000 people came to
early voting -- out of about 200,000 registered voters, so we had 3.5%
turnout. I hope that means people are just waiting on Election Day!

A couple points about changes in the voting process:

Voters will be asked if theyhavean photo ID, but notfortheir
ID. This has been pretty confusing. What is going on is that the Board
of Elections folks are trying to get contact information for people whoneedIDs so they can be ready for 2016, when they need a photo ID.

Because it is a primary, votes will be asked which
party they belong to so they can get the right ballot. Independents can
choose to vote in at most one of the three partisan primaries. Voters
are not asked to state their party in general elections.

Not
all the races are on all the ballots. If your party hasn't recruited
someone to run for, say Chief Ambassador of Entertainment (assuming CAE,
a position I just made up for illustration purposes, is a partisan
office), or has only one person who has filed to run for that office,
you will not see that office on your ballot.

They are being really serious about no cell phones or other electronic devices in
the voting places. If you need a list of candidates you want to vote
for, make a paper copy to bring into the voting booth with you.

We no longer have the option of having ballots cast provisionally in the wrong precinct count.